. The business has shifted into a free-to-playmode
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. The business has shifted into a free-to-playmode
consuming video games at a higher rate on their mobile platforms. Awareness ofthe number of EA’s sports-related video games that have been downloaded onto mobile devices only begins to scratch the surface in terms the breadth of the movement of video game players from consoles to mobile devices. According toFrank Gibeau, the executive vice president of EA Mobile, 600 million EA games have been downloaded onto mobile devices in 2014. ”About half of the gaming business is on mobile devices right now. It’s a gigantic market in terms of audience size, engagement and participation. When you hear console teams talking about selling five to ten million units, our numbers are 120 million installations for EA Sports games. The mobile gaming business is up 60-percent this year. That is off of a very big base of multiple billions,” Gibeau explained. What has allowed EA to achieve significant growth in its mobile gaming business? Namely, there are two strategies that propelled EA to the position of being the mobile video game leader. The first being its portfolio of games, and the second being its willingness to adapt its model of presenting games to consumers. ”We focused on a couple of things. First, we have an incredible brand portfolio, which includes games from FIFA to Madden, that attracts massive audiences. The combination of our portfolio gives us a platform to create new mobile experiences oriented fut 16 coins to be services. Second, we have moved into a free-to-playservicemodel. In the past, when it came to mobile games, you would download the game once and that was the end of things. The business has shifted into a free-to-playmodel, where a user downloads the game for free and the gaming company provides you with a service that changes over time, allowing users to participate in a highly interactive way,” Gibeau noted. Utilizing its free-to-playservice model has allowed EA to strengthen its portfolio of games. Doing so has subsequently driven more users to its games. ”We’ve really embraced the conversion to the free-to-playmodel, which has allowed us to unlock huge audiences. It’s a big opportunity for us by switching the accessibility of the games to this free model with premium features that has really worked for us. Taking games like FIFA and Madden and embracing the free-to-playservice model while also building those games from the bottom us is what has allowed us to see the biggest jump in growth. We are up 250-percent in our audience level year over year,” Gibeau said. Video game users’ transition to mobile devices as their video game playing platform of choice has allowed EA to respond better to their needs and desires. ”The beauty is, if you see something really working in one game, you can go deep into it, because you can see that it’s working in real-time.